11/01/95
TEHRAN TIMES
CATEGORY: POLITICS
WORD COUNT: 410
TEHRAN Special ceremonies will be held here at Felestine Square Wednesday afternoon to commemorate the martyrdom of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement's Secretary General Fathi Shaqaqi. The Leader's representative at the Haj pilgrimage, Hojjatoleslam Mohammad Mohammadi Reyshahri, is expected to address the ceremony.
Peoples from different walks of life and various organs have thus far announced their readiness to attend the ceremony to proclaim their consolidation with the Palestinian nation and express hatred toward the Zionist regime and its crimes. The ceremony is arranged by the Coordinating Council for Islamic Propagation.
Other reports indicate that a similar ceremony was held here on behalf of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution at the mosque of the University of Tehran on Monday. Addressing the ceremony, Hojjatoleslam Seyed Abdullah Fatemi—Nia branded the Zionist regime as the major sponsor of state terrorism.
He further touched on the recent terrorist moves, namely, the abortive terror of Iran's charge d'affaires in Argentina, the hijacking of the Iranian passenger plane and the assassination of Shaqaqi, blaming the Zionist regime for the crimes. Shaqaqi attained martyrdom when sprayed by bullets on the island of Malta on Thursday.
Slain Islamic Jihad chief Fathi Shaqaqi will be buried alongside other fallen Palestinian activists at a refugee camp here today, a spokesman for the militant group said yesterday. Shaqaqi, 43, was killed in Malta on Thursday in an assassination which Islamic Jihad blamed on Israeli Mossad agents.
The widow of slain Islamic Jihad leader Fathi Shaqaqi received his body yesterday and accused Israel's intelligence agency, Mossad, and Yasser Arafat‘s security agents of working together to assassinate him. Fathia Shaqaqi alleged that elements of the Palestine Liberation Organization's elite force l7, Arafat's special security branch, had facilitated the slaying in Malta last Thursday.
"They guided and helped Mossad elements in the assassination of my husband," she told reporters at Damascus airport soon after the body of her late husband arrived on a special Tunisian aircraft.
The 44 year old Islamic activist was shot dead outside a hotel in Valetta, the Maltese capital, by a gunman on motorcycle.
PLO officials have denied involvement in the Shaqaqi slaying and accused Mossad. The Israelis, as usual, have said nothing. His widow ululated as the coffin, wrapped in a Palestinian flag, was taken off the plane and showered with roses. "This is your promised day, my comrade. This is the day of your trip to paradise," she said weepinq.